massive: That much I can agree with, since WP/48 didn’t like those two players at all. But, as I said earlier, WP/48 is only good for measuring how good a player was in their role on the court. Faried would be terrible, too, if he was relied on heavily by the Nuggets (like Jackson and Diaw were on their lottery teams). I think it’s a great stat when comparing players who play similar roles, but it clearly has problems in predicting how a player will do when changing roles (as Jackson and Diaw did once they became Spurs).

Well put, massive. Of course, THCJ will use the ol’ “outlier” defense that he turns to any time the gears in the WP48 machine start grinding. Jowles has jumped down the throat of any poor soul who suggested that a WoWaphobic player (Melo, Amare, Felton, etc.) might improve due to a change in scenery, role, teammates, coaches, or anyone who would cherry pick a limited sample of games.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
We’re also talking about Popovich, who is one of few coaches shown by Berri and friends to have any kind of positive impact on player production.

Then why isn’t it accounted for at all? Shouldn’t there be some kind of “coaching coefficient” that gives some credit to the coach? Like Poppovich is worth 5 wins (or say a 10% increase in wins) and that Vinny Del Negro kills your team? Seriously, you know you stat has flaws but you just ignore them when discussing it’s conclusions? And you want to pretend that this somehow comparable to real scientific research?

You keep bringing up the straw men that I only believe in numbers at my convenience, but the truth is I see no reason to base my decisions on a stat that has a lot of serious flaws, some of which it’s creators are at least vaguely aware of. If WP suddenly started accounting for defense, coaching, and player role, I’d be a lot more likely to take it seriously. As it is, it just tells me that limited offensive players who can’t make a jump shot or defend but rebound extremely well and only take uncontested layups are considered valuable by WP. Which is how Rodman comes out as a better player than Michael Jordan lol

massive: What matters is that they played great basketball for the Spurs. Why should what they did on another team matter when we’re talking about their season with the Spurs? They made the most of the minutes they had under Popovich, so he kept playing them instead of Blair (who had a bad year in terms of WP/48).

Because one of the core ideas of statistics is “beware small sample sizes”. THCJ has also constantly parroted the idea that players don’t change when they switch teams, and in this case both went from being below average WP players for years, on several different team, to serious rotation players on a contender. The point is, why would Poppovich acquire and start playing terrible players? Stephen Jackson was a net negative (by WP) when he was with the Bucks, so why was Poppovich comfortable playing him right away? WP gave less than zero indication that Jackson and Diaw would be good players, while giving plenty of indication that Blair was amazing (he was a better prospect than Blake Griffin by their college metric).

So how do you justify that the best coach in the league saw enough in both players to go out and acquire them, AND that they turned out well even though the conclusion you get from WP is that they would seriously hurt the team? You can’t judge an analytical process by the results, which means that WP would have judged the Diaw and Jackson acquisitions as fucking terrible, which they obviously were not. So why the major discrepancy between what a brilliant basketball mind thinks vs. what a linear metric based on a box score says?

Juany8:
A cleaner look at what the official site for tracking WP says about Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson last year.

http://www.thenbageek.com/players/compare?utf8=%E2%9C%93&player_ids%5B%5D=21&player_ids%5B%5D=24

Unless you just think the NBA geek site has the wrong numbers (which wouldn’t exactly be my fault), there is no way to say Diaw or Jackson have been anything but terrible for a couple of years, as far as WP goes at least

Until they played for the Spurs lol.

Juany8: If someone like Love, Blair, or Love can’t defend, it doesn’t mean they’re worthless players. It just means they’re not freaking superstars. That’s the case I’m trying to make, that those guys might be solid starters, and certainly deserve serious rotation minutes. According to WP48, however, Faried was the second best rotation player in the league on a per minute basis. Is there a single person here that believes Faried (other than THCJ) is honestly better than Tyson Chandler, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant… etc.?

To me, WP/48 says that Kenneth Faried was really good at what he was asked to do last year. The same thing for Kawhi Leonard, and every other player WP/48 likes (well, maybe not Fields). I define a superstar as a player that every metric (eye test, PER, WP/48, and WS/48) agrees is a superstar. Otherwise, he’s not a superstar. IMO, the only superstars in the NBA, are Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Dwight Howard.

http://www.thenbageek.com/players/compare?utf8=%E2%9C%93&player_ids%5B%5D=21&player_ids%5B%5D=24

Unless you just think the NBA geek site has the wrong numbers (which wouldn’t exactly be my fault), there is no way to say Diaw or Jackson have been anything but terrible for a couple of years, as far as WP goes at least

Juany8:
http://www.thenbageek.com/players/24-stephen-jackson

http://www.thenbageek.com/players/21-boris-diaw

Are you really taking half of a shortened season to draw your conclusions? If you don’t even take statistics seriously, why should anyone else?

What matters is that they played great basketball for the Spurs. Why should what they did on another team matter when we’re talking about their season with the Spurs? They made the most of the minutes they had under Popovich, so he kept playing them instead of Blair (who had a bad year in terms of WP/48).

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Your numbers are more valid than mine because you say so. Right on, chief of mathematicals.

lol it’s the NBA geek site! they literally say right there what they produced last season, and the actual WOW website doesn’t even bother keeping track of it’s own numbers anymore. You’re literally disputing facts now lol, this isn’t even an opinion. Unless you think 2/3 of Diaw’s minute’s last year are somehow not applicable when talking about Diaw’s performance last year